R1155

[Yorkie]

To be fair, the R1155 was indeed designed for a specific role, and fulfilled that role. It could indeed be argued that even though designed for rugged operational conditions, it was, if anything, over-engineered. You're right Al, about it's anticipated lifespan being short - the average life of a Lancaster or Wellington was no more than 20 weeks. Indeed, many never saw active service - the crews crashed and died in training.

The statistics are sobering:

A Bomber Command crew member in WW2 had a worse chance of survival than an infantry officer in World War I. By comparison, the US Eighth Air Force, which flew daylight raids over Europe, had 350,000 aircrew during the war, and suffered 26,000 killed and 23,000 POWs. Of the RAF Bomber Command personnel killed during the war, 72% were British. (18% were Canadian, 7% were Australian and 3% were New Zealanders. High in relation to the size of their populations, and of course all volunteers - not conscripts).

Taking an example of 100 airmen:

55 killed on operations or died as result of wounds
Three injured (in varying levels of severity) on operations or active service
12 taken prisoner of war (some injured)
Two shot down and evaded capture
27 survived a tour of operations

In total 364,514 operational sorties were flown, 1,030,500 tons of bombs were dropped and 8,325 aircraft lost in action.

Statistically there was little prospect of surviving a tour of 30 operations, and by 1943 the odds against survival were pretty grim with only one in six expected to survive their first tour, while just one in forty would survive their second tour. For much of the war, about 1 in 20 aircraft would, on average, be shot down – although obviously there was great variations - on some occasions the loss rate exceeded 10% – sometimes much higher than that.

But I guess that despite its limitations, the R1155 has become something of an icon of WW2, and since during the post-war years when the surplus market was awash with them, the 1155 had no useful purpose other than as a 'donor' receiver to be licked into shape for SWL/Amateur use, I guess that few now remain in unmodified condition. There would have been no purpose in buying one as an 'ornament' so the minute it was acquired, out came the Black and Decker drill and a pair of snips to hack out all the useless gubbins such as the DF section, magic eye and so forth, to make room for a PSU and output stage and turn it into a basic short-wave receiver. Happy days, when impecunious amateurs (many of them ex-Services) prided themselves in how cheaply they managed to get on air, rather than how much they've splashed out on the latest 'state of the art' (soon to be obsolete) plug 'n play offerings from 'Kenyeasuicom'. I doubt that it ever crossed anyone's mind that one day, people would pay humongous amounts of money for one as a 'collectors' item. Who'd have thought it - a grand for a 'dust trap'!

It could make me cynical!:D